Man Arrested For Drinking Ice Tea in Parking Lot

Originally posted by Gu1tarJohn
Every time I see one of these where someone supposedly gets arrested ONLY for something trivial, I have to ask the question: "What's the whole
story?". There is pretty much always some descent reason for the arrest, such as being defiant and becoming belligerent. I bet that if he had (as
others have said) let the cop smell the drink so he knew it was legit and not raised hell, there would be no headline/story...

Do you let strange men who walk up to you in plain cloth look in your stuff just because they claim to be a cop ?

That could actually be the new trick to rob people seeing as apparently ,reading comments like these ^ a lot of you would.

edit on 3-5-2013 by Rubic0n because: (no reason given)

Had I read the whole article, I would have known that the cop was in plain clothes. Good point.

He marches the victim into the police station, and all the other cops look at him with admiration.

That's the reason.

The cop is not acting alone.

He's reflecting the attitudes of the particular department he is working in.

His reason for taking this action, is so that he can brag to his buddies, and get those pats on the back, when he returns to the station.

Its a social thing.

It's not the fault of one cop. No cop truly acts alone. He acts for approval from his social group.

If he did not get approval, he would not do this.

The black guy also acted in the way that gets approval from his social group. Making fun of the cop, who is simply trying to determine if the can is
really Ice Tea. Mocking the cop, is standard among the rap group crowd.

Machines are going to have an easier and easier time fitting in. Everybody thinks smart machines are far away, yet they fail to notice how
machine-like humans are becoming every day.

Is it the machine becoming like us or us becoming like the machine? Both!

Reminds me of a book I read by Asimov. At the time, I laughed it off. I told myself he was an old fogey. I still think he was, but I think he was onto
something when he described one of the cities in a very machine-like way. By comparison, nature - outside the city - was far less rule-oriented.
Asimov didn't frame the whole story around this idea, but it played a part. Ray Bradbury touched this idea in his stories too. They both kind of had
an affinity for HUMAN things; imperfection, rumination, etc.

Society is trying to control everything as the walls squeeze in on us. So many factors. And humans become conditioned to the new technological
environment. Things slip and grow. Past memories fade. New trends. It seems inevitable to me that we will lose things in the process. But, of course,
all of the news and media and content outlets will be saying loudly how reasonable it all is.

Originally posted by Jaellma
It's really amazing the number of people on here who believes the "cop" was in the right to harass and arrest the civilian. The cop was clearly in
the wrong AND no, people, this was not staged or fake in any way.

Black people face this sort of treatment every day in the USA by all cops, regardless if the cops are black, white, brown or otherwise. It's just a
lack of respect towards a certain group of people, which is very sad. I recall a time as a teenager walking home around midnight from work (McDonalds)
and having the cops almost execute me. They shone a flashlight in my face from a distance and said they were going to "shoot my black ass" if I
didn't raise my hands and stop walking. Even though I had on my McDonalds uniform they claimed someone had robbed a local 7-Eleven store and they
were looking for the perpetrator. Needless to say, my mom and I filed charges against the officers the following day.

I have dozens of horror stories about cops involving family, friends, acquaintances, etc but the fact of the matter is blacks are disproportionately
targeted by cops for just about any reason in the USA.

It's not just black people. Many police officers are just like school-yard bullies, they will find something about you that is different from the
herd and single you out and harass you until they find something to arrest/fine you for.

Many, not all people, that become cops have low self esteem and need to bully others to make themselves feel better. Police officers have a high rate
of alcoholism, divorce rate and suicide rate among other professions. It's a high stress job with low pay but comes with great power and
responibility so it attracts a particular individual.

I'm not making excuses for bad cops but I think some changes need to be made in the way that law enforcement is carried out in America. Filming cops
on a regular basis is the first step. We need everyone to film police everytime they have contact with civilians and we need laws in place to protect
citizens from fear of arrest or intimidation by the police that are being filmed. No more of this "interfering in an investigation" garbage.

Just to readdress this...the trial was six days ago. No word pro or con. I tried to find the outcome on the NC court system database and I can see
where and when the proceeding was scheduled for the opening day, but after that I can't find it scheduled for any courtroom, like it was over in a
single day. It doesn't show the outcome.

Does anyone have Lexis/Nexis, Justia or whatever that can look up the result without me having to pony up $15 to find out?

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